THIRD TRUMPET--MARIETTA
On September 26-27 the Twentieth
Legion will be encamped at our favorite stomping grounds along with La
Belle Compagnie, our friends from the 14th century. Public hours
will be something like 10 AM to 5 PM, and we’ll march around whenever
anyone
wants us to. Soldiers and civilians, lunch provided, camp out if
you like, etc. This is a particularly good event for
under-equipped
recruits: come on out and we’ll put someone else’s armor on you and
teach
you some drill. Members of other groups, if you want to come and
join the fun, just let me know. (Since interest in this event
seems
to be growing, next year we’ll pick our own weekend, rather than have
La
Belle invite us and then overwhelm them with a hundred Romans!)

STUFF
Remember that 1/8" luan plywood
that I ordered from Woodworld just before last month’s issue? IT
STILL HASN’T COME IN YET!! Gads, I oughta plant my own luan
trees...
To avoid complete idleness, I did bang out a couple bosses last
weekend,
and learned several things. Recently I had read in a book about
basic
metalworking that when dishing or "sinking" metal (into a form,
sandbag,
etc.), one starts at the outer edge and works inwards in concentric
circles.
So that’s how I did several bosses. Now, I’d been having trouble
with the sides of the rectangular flange of the boss "pleating" as I
dished,
forcing me to pound it flat every few minutes and making a real mess of
what should have been smooth metal. The same thing happened with the
first
boss last weekend, and I was getting mad. "By Vulcan! It
didn’t
USE to do that!" And bing! A little light went on.
When
I first started making bosses, I started dishing from the CENTER and
worked
outwards (just like I wrote in the Handbook, right?). So I
grabbed
the second piece of metal, started dishing from the center, and the
sides
stayed straight! Moral: The right method is the one that
works.
The second thing I learned is
that I don’t have to anneal this bronze that I’ve got. I
was
able to scrounge several LARGE kickplates that were being replaced on
doors
where I work, and whatever alloy they may be is proving to be nice
stuff.
It’s about 18-guage, much redder than regular yellow brass, but
definitely
not straight copper. And I dished both of those bosses to an inch
and a half depth in less than an hour, without annealing. That’s
not supposed to be a good idea in general--that much cold working can
tear
the metal--but it works with this stuff!

TENT TALK
In recent months several people
have asked if there’s any evidence of Roman army tents being made out
of
anything other than leather. In short, No--there is plenty of
archeological
evidence for leather tents, references in literature to how many calf
skins
are needed for a tent, and the Latin equivalent of "under canvas" is
subpellibus--"under
hides". There’s not a hint anywhere that linen or some other
textile
might have been used, and it seems that leather was probably cheaper
and
easier to use than linen would have been at that time.
Usually the reason people bring
this up is that they want to make an authentic tent, but simply can’t
afford
that much leather. (Hey, if old Ed hadn’t gotten the urge to buy
the leather and then spend over a year stitching it, we still wouldn’t
have a tent!) So the advice I’ve been giving is this: Make
a canvas tent! Make it the same size and shape as a real one, and
just tell your audience that the real ones were leather but you can’t
afford
that yet. Don’t spend any more than necessary on
fabric--there’s
no point in using linen since tents weren’t linen, right? My
sister
and I once made a big medieval tent from 12 yards of backdrop muslin
(c.
8-1/2 feet wide) for about $100, and a Roman tent would use about half
that much fabric. If waterproof canvas of some kind is too
expensive,
get a clear liquid waterproofing compound. The idea is to make a
functional tent that "casts the right shadow" without blowing your
budget.
You all know that I NEVER advise people to use or make something that
isn’t
excruciatingly correct, but authentic leather tents aren’t something
you
can commission from your local caligae-maker, and there are times when
a tent is vitally needed but a nylon dome or pop-up plastic fly just
won’t
do. As long as you make it clear to the public that what you have
is simply a cheap working mockup, I think the authenticity gods will
not
object.

GRAIN OF SALT
The shadowy Dr. E passed me a
brief article from the Frederick Post about some residents of a Chinese
village who "have Latin physical traits and carry on cultural
traditions
that can be traced to ancient Rome." It explains that these
people
are "likely descended from a Roman expeditionary force that was sent to
Central Asia and defeated in battle in 53 B.C." Here we go again,
the old story that a legion's worth of Crassus' troops got moved
wholesale
to China. Apparently it got started when someone noticed that the
ancient city of Peking was rectangular, or maybe it was a garbled
account
of a battle involving Chinese soldiers with javelins or short
swords.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE, FOLKS! Nada. Zippo. Just
because
people with big noses cut up chickens or look at birds doesn't make
them
Romans. Heck, the Vietnamese still make fish sauce. The
idea
of the Lost Legion of Crassus is an amusing fairy tale, but it's so
full
of holes that frankly the science fiction novel that has them being
carried
off by aliens to fight on low-tech worlds is more plausible (Ranks
of
Bronze by David Drake). What's most amazing about this is
that
Chinese authorities have been frantically working to cover up or
discredit
the remains of a substantial Caucasian culture that existed in China
long
before the Romans could have gotten there, to the point of faking
graves.
Perhaps that lost culture is the real origin of the Chinese "Romans".

CALENDAR
September 26-27--Leg. XX encamped at Marietta Mansion with La
Belle Compagnie (14th cent.).
November--Legio III Gallica appearing at Destrehan Plantation,
New Orleans. Legio XX has been invited. Road trip?
December--Probably Bethlehem Market Place show at St. Luke’s
Lutheran Church, Silver Spring, MD.
March 1999--Military Through the Ages, Jamestown, VA.
Despite my whining about the lousy weather, people seem to want to go
to
this again...
April 1999--Marching Through Time, Marietta Mansion.
June? 1999--Roman Days. There was at least one suggestion
that we move this to October, but I LIKE it hot!
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ALERT--Your beloved Quintus has just gotten nailed for jury duty in
the Maryland District Court. I'll be on call for a month sometime
between October 5 and December 31, and there's at least one 6-week
trial
scheduled for that period. The upshot is that I may "disappear"
for
a while, and I may even be forced to skip an issue of Adlocvtio!
I should still be reachable by phone in the evenings, but I'll probably
be out of touch with my computer at work.
Be that as it may, ADLOCVTIO is
still the official monthly newsletter of the Twentieth Legion, edited
by
Matthew "Quintus" Amt.
The Legion web page: http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/3761/index.htm
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